Change Your Mind, Change Your Habits, Change Your Life

Your Comeback is Calling

Read below to discover the five elements of a comeback, and how to stage your own legendary turn-around. Reading time: 3.5 minutes

If you live under a rock, you probably haven’t heard yet about the Patriots winning Super Bowl LI in truly dramatic and unprecedented fashion.

You missed the Patriots coming back from a mounting 28-3 blowout, converting consecutive two-point conversion tries to bring the game to overtime.

You probably also missed the fact that the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons combined to set or match 31 records in the Super Bowl, ending with Quarterback Tom Brady and Coach Bill Belichick as undisputed legends of the game.

Love ’em or hate ’em, nobody can deny what the Patriots did on Sunday night – pull off perhaps the most important comeback in NFL history.

Indeed, most of America had put up the chips and dip, heading to bed thinking that Atlanta had sown up the victory.

But the Patriots taught us all a valuable lesson – it’s never too late to stage a comeback.

Is there something about your daily walk that could use a fourth-quarter surge? Do you need to kick it into gear at work, show the boss you have what it takes? Have you had a goal to lose weight that never seems to develop into action? Need to re-energize your love life with your partner? Have an urge to be a better spouse, sister, brother, father, mother, friend?

Have you fallen behind on the scoreboard in any of these areas? – It’s time for a personal comeback.

It’s natural to give Tom Brady most of the praise for the display on Sunday, but there’s quite a bit more going on here that we need to check out if we are to stage our own comeback:

Five Elements of a Comeback

Undying optimism: Look at teams that let games go. Look at their faces on the sidelines, their dejected demeanor on the bench. They accept defeat with time on the clock – not you. They hang their heads and let the game slip by – you won’t. Those that successfully come back work hard, despite looming reality. They pay no mind to naysayers, and lift others up in their pursuit. They are believers that something needs to be done now, and that they are the exact right person or team to do it – why not you?

Fading opposition: In a game, as in life, we can feel outmatched right from the kick-off. Sometimes it just seems as if the opposition is too strong, too fast, or that the task at hand is too daunting. The longer we hang in there, however, the more we find that simple perseverance trumps raw talent. Hard work over the long-term beats brilliant work in the short-term.

Momentum: It only takes one right decision to start the ball rolling. The more right decisions we make on our path, the bigger the snowball. The bigger the snowball, the harder it is to stop.

Faith: To come out on top, comeback kings and queens have a deep faith in two things: that they could do it in the first place, and that there is a higher power pulling for them to do it if it’s meant to be. Faith can be tested, but true faith will not be broken.

Time: Those that comeback successfully recognize the value of seconds. A lot can change in 60 seconds, for better or for worse. Each second, minute, day, week, month, and year is an opportunity. It’s easy to say – “I’ve got time, that can wait” – but the art of coming back demands we use the time available to us now, and now, and now, and so-on.

We all cheer enthusiastically for a game on TV – for players we don’t know to do things that don’t really affect our daily lives in any tangible way.

Isn’t it time to start using some of that enthusiasm on ourselves? Let’s cheer for ourselves and lift ourselves up with as much energy and celebration as we do simple games. Let’s apply it where it matters, staging real-life comebacks that fundamentally alter our trajectory for the better.